1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to aerodynamic lift devices and, more particularly, to sailboat sails adapted to bear printed informational content.
2. Description of the Background Art
Industrious marketers routinely look for innovative ways to convey information, particularly information in the form of advertisements. Traditional forms of advertisement, i.e. print advertisement in periodical publications and television and radio advertising, flourish in the electronic age. With the advent of the Internet, advertisers have found an additional means of advertising, instantaneously, on a worldwide basis.
However, the advent of the electronic age has not ended the romance and relaxation associated with vacationing and/or leisuring near bodies of water. A significant portion of the population of humans on this planet repose at some time or another in their lives near lake and sea shores. For many of these vacationers and local residents alike, such time spent, whether brief or long-lasting, is accompanied by an overwhelming sense of awareness and relaxation of the surroundings, yielding one of the most significant opportunities for advertisers to ingratiate their messages and information into the memories of those near the water.
Unfortunately, the ability and right to physically place informational messages, e.g. advertisements, before vacationers and local residents near the water is severely limited by environmental factors and laws which limit or completely prohibit advertising structures such as billboards and other signs. Since those recreating near the water inevitably face the water, any land-based structures are for the most part directly behind beachgoers and therefore only seen for a small amount of time.
The use of banner planes, which fly translucent or transparent banners bearing messages which can only be read on one side, only provide limited exposure due to the fact that they are typically required to fly some distance offshore and fly at speeds in excess of 100 or more miles per hour. As a result, the banners are only in front of the eyes of each particular viewer for a brief time.
Therefore, a conveniently deployed information dissemination system is needed which does not require the construction of a permanent fixture in the water and which can be selectively maintained essentially in fixed position or moved very slowly before areas on the shore which happen to have the highest concentration of people at a given time.
It is, therefore, a principal object of this invention to provide an advertising system which exposes informational messages to virtually any land area near a lake or seashore.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a novel sailboat sail on which can be imprinted photorealistic informational content using an extremely inexpensive sail material and widely-used printing technique.
These and other objects are accomplished through the use of a sailboat flying one or more sails, which sails have imprinted thereon informational content, such as consumer advertising. The sail material is chosen from a group of materials which lay completely flat, i.e. planar, when laid against a planar surface, but which stretch under wind loading when attached to a sailboat to form the conventional airfoil shape desirable of a sail. By choosing sail material which stretches between a completely flat, planar, orientation when not exposed to aerodynamic forces, conventional printing techniques can be utilized to print the information thereupon. With the advent of large printing apparatuses which can produce very large, photorealistic, imagery, such as product photographs and logos, the process of printing upon the sail material is greatly simplified. Attempts to print, paint, etc. such images upon sails having xe2x80x9cdraftxe2x80x9d, that is, sails which have more linear feet of sail material between the luff and the leech than the actual distance between the luff and the leech, have invariably resulted in distorted images as the draft of the sail opens up under wind loading. Any attempt whatsoever to compensate for such distortion during the printing process would be extremely complex and, consequently, cost-prohibitive.
Certainly the most desirable sail on a sailboat to portray informational content upon is the jib. However, the larger the draft of the jib made out of prior art material, the more difficult it is to print upon due to the amount of sagging in the sail material in its flaccid state. The same is true for any sail, e.g. mainsail, inner staysail, etc.
To overcome these disadvantages, a combination sail and information content conveying medium is proposed. In the preferred embodiment, the sail material is a laminated banner opaque vinyl having polyester yarn scrim, preferably in a cross-hatched orientation, but other orientations will work just as well. When the sail material is laid flat upon a horizontal planar surface, it can be printed upon with ease. Since some sails are larger than existing printers can accommodate due to the flattened nature of the material, plural sheets can be printed upon and combined, such as by stitching or pressurized heat seaming, or otherwise combined, stitching or pressurized heat seaming, or otherwise combined, along edges of the sheets so as to cover the entire sail. In use, due to the elastic nature of the material, a xe2x80x9cdraftxe2x80x9d is created in the sail by aerodynamic forces causing the sail to assume an airfoil shape which drives the vessel through the water in the same manner as occurs when a conventional sail is used. Batten pockets covered with the artwork corresponding to those sections of the sail where batten pockets are desired maybe applied, again by stitching, heat seaming or the like.
The use of a material chosen from the group of materials disclosed herein has exhibited the surprising result of performance comparable to standard Mylar(copyright), Kevlar, etc. sails, but upon which can be printed or otherwise imparted amazingly photorealistically detailed images of products and/or other informational content which is visible literally for miles on a relatively slow moving vessel. As a result, the number and duration of advertising impressions among beachgoers is far greater than any other advertising medium ever used before.
There is also disclosed herein a novel method for manufacturing such a sail. The method is comprised of the following steps:
(a) providing a flat sheet of stretchable material having a denier, grab tensile strength (stretch factor) and tongue tear (point of failure after puncture) sufficient to suitably hold together and function as a sail under normal near-shore sailing conditions;
(b) printing on one or both sides of the flat sheet information content to be displayed while the sail is mounted upon a sailboat;
(c) cutting the flat sheet into the shape of a sail.
The steps of printing and cutting may be interchanged should the flat sheet already be cut into the shape of a sail. That is, the step of printing the informational content onto the flat sheet can be done after the sheet has been cut into the shape of a sail or portion thereof. Thereafter, grommets, reefing lines, etc. can be attached.
The invention will be best understood in connection with the accompanying drawings and from a consideration of the following detailed description in which corresponding parts are indicated by corresponding numerals.